Next Time
by miss selah
Summary: It's a shame I have to wait until the ending, Everything I've yet to break is surely bending, Every vow I ever take is just pretending,That this mess I make is worth defending...
1. Prologue

__**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

__**Genre: **Romance / Drama

**Author's Note: **I originally wrote and posted this story 6 years ago, and every few months I would look back and go, "you know, I really should finish that. It's only got 2 chapters to go!" But I never did. Was it because I was lazy? Partially. Was it because I am a bad author? Oooo_ooh _definitely. But mostly it was because I really didn't care much for the beginning. After all, this _was _originally a one shot that became... well, more.

So, 6 years later, I have finally - _finally! _- completed this story. I will post maybe once a day until it's done. If you read it, please reread it. I have reworked it to make it more palatable to myself, but I left all of the key components there. If you are new, then I hope you enjoy the show.

* * *

_When you die, they make a list_

_Of every love you never kissed_

_Of each regret, and each mistake._

_Every choice you failed to make. _

_-Next Time, Bare Naked Ladies_

* * *

_**Chapter One**_

_How close we are_

Betelgeuse, former bio-exorcist, ultimately the greatest prankster, and - excluding the fact that he only had a sad memory of his former power - the ghost with the most, tottled along with Lydia as she hustled and bustled her way through a less than easy life unnoticed and unhelpful.

It was rather emasculating, when he applied any thought to it, but what could he do? After all, it was difficult to be of any use when you couldn't even hold a proper form.

For a while, Betelgeuse had held on to the bitter anger towards Lydia Deetz for foiling his plans to be free. He was _this close _to being a free man, _this close _to having everything he could have possibly wished for.

_Well, __maybe __not everything_. . . he thought, narrowing his eyes at the witchy girl, _but it was close enough._

So when he had nearly died – again – he tethered himself neatly to Lydia, determined to make her suffer as he had suffered. But as the days turned in to weeks, and the weeks in to months, Betelgeuse began to notice little things about her. . . the way her smile never quite reached her eyes, the way her nose wrinkled at the thought of vegetables, and the way she would chew nervously on the inside of her cheek while studying.

He had tethered himself to her in hopes of destroying her.

And he had come _this close _to admitting to himself that it wasn't the reason he stayed. . .

Juno had asked him once how he managed to pull it off – even with all his powers, it was unheard of for a ghost with no reason to keep unliving to go on. And with Betelgeuse's dreams of being free so throughly obliterated, his only anchor to the mortal world should have been severed.

He had told her that it was his hatred for Lydia that had kept him there. It wasn't the truth, but it was so close that she probably couldn't tell that his hatred wasn't hateful at all. . . in fact, if Juno had cared enough to investigate it a bit, she might have been surprised to see that Betelgeuse's 'hatred' was in reality far closer to 'obsession.'

So Betelgeuse had remained anchored – barely – and was always _this close _to slipping away, the tiny, shimering threads that tied him to the mortal world, to Lydia, quivering with the weight of his loneliness.

His form was barely a whisper of cold breath on the back of Lydia's neck, a formless specter who hung around her to – to what? Be a little closer to the one he might have loved, if they had met in another time, another place? See her in every waking and sleeping moment? To wait for her to show some sign, any sign, that she remembered him too?

Betelgeuse was _this close _to letting her go, _this close _in believing that she had pushed him to the back of her mind, when one day she stopped and shivered. Betelgeuse threw himself around her in that moment, enveloping her in a shifting mist of ectoplasm and loosely strung together life force. That was all he could do. . . his form wasn't tied tightly enough to her world to even give her a message. But he was _this close. . . _

"Betelgeuse?" She questioned, her brown eyes, thickened and heavy with mascara and shadow, darted this way and that, and her hand flew to the base of her throat in one of the oldest ways a woman would protect herself from evil.

"Are you there?"

_Yes. . . _Betelgeuse thought so loudly that for a moment, he thought that maybe she could hear him. After all, they were _this close. . . _

"Silly me," whispered Lydia, shaking her head. For a moment, Betelgeuse thought that maybe her eyes had misted over, that maybe she was locked in a bitter nostalgia. But then a harsh light seeped in to them, and she looked the same as he always remembered. "He's gone."

_Silly girl, indeed. _Betelgeuse agreed. But with the whisper of his name – only once – the cords that tied him to her world began to thicken, binding themselves around himself and her. He was by no means even a shadow of his former self, but if he had been able to find a mirror, he would have seen glowing green eyes staring back from an otherwise empty fog. By the whisper of his name, he managed to whisper three words. . .

_You aren't silly. _

Lydia's head snapped up, and she jumped uneasily. Her eyes darted a little more frantically than before, before she took off at an easy pace. . . probably hoping to outrun the ghosts of her past at a slight jog.

But the threads of fate had thickened in to yards of yarn, and they pulled Betelgeuse along beside her. Betelgeuse smiled in spite of himself, feeling a bit whimsical and happier than he had been in a very long time.

In fact, if he could have, Betelgeuse was sure that he would have _laughed_.


	2. War

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

* * *

_"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."_

**- Winston Churchill**

* * *

**Chapter Two**

* * *

Lydia shut the door behind her and slid the lock smoothly in to place with a click. For good measure, she turned the dead bolt. And – since she was willing to admit to herself that she knew that she was just being paranoid – she went ahead and slid the chain into place for good measure.

She knew that if – and it was a great big 'if,' after all - Beetlejuice _had_ returned, no amount of locked doors or pleas for reason would help her. She had conned the con man in the worst way possible, and she knew that he would see that she was put back in her place.

She placed a hand over her heart, and grasped the chain that lay underneath. Pulling it out, she sighed as she looked at the ring that he had placed on her finger before a sand worm had devoured him.

_He's finally come back. _She thought to herself, even the voice in her mind a bit breathy and tired. _He's come back to get his revenge. . ._

Betelgeuse floated lazily besides her, using the emotion from her turbulent thoughts to tie himself back together again. He knew that she had heard him whisper to her. If she hadn't, her thoughts wouldn't be so solely trained on him, and he wouldn't be able to use her emotion to his advantage.

He wondered what she would do if she knew it was her own fear of him that was bringing him back to unlife.

_Probably run and hide,_ the little chit. He sneered at her, and was mildly amused to find that he had a mouth to sneer with. He raised his hands – _Oh, thank God! Finally! Hands! _– to his face to touch the curled lips. He gave her a sideways look.

_If she keeps this up, keeps going on like this, I wont even need to marry her to get out!_

But something in her must have clicked, because Lydia slowly stiffened her back. "He won't win." She whispered, stubbornly, and then louder. "Do you hear me, BETELGEUSE?! You wont win!"

_Two_. . . he thought, and watched his own feet reappear before him.

Lydia made a quick sound of disgust in the back of her throat, and unlocked her silly metal contraptions. Without a backwards glance, she slammed the door to her flat and fled in to the city.

Betelgeuse considered following her, as he normally did, but then decided against it. Now that she knew he was here, he needed time to prepare.

Because this, undoubtedly, meant war.

.

.

.

.

.

Lydia scowled, hiding a number of less-than-college level books beneath her jacket, protecting them from the rain that fell in sheets around her. She stood on her stoop, staring up at her door. Beetlejuice was somewhere, and she knew what that meant. . .

War.

So she had gone to her local new age book shop and purchased as many books on spirit vanquishing as she could find, purchased a few pounds of dried white sage, and bought a Ouija board, which she carried in a bag at her side.

Taking a deep breath, she reached for the door handle and went in to her house.

It was quiet, and the rain pelted on the roof in such a rhythmic fashion that she immediately began to feel sleepy. She shivered, despite the warmth of her house, and turned the heater up a bit more.

He was here.

"Hey." She said with a fierce scowl. "I know you're here. C'mon out!"

Besides her, Betelgeuse knocked over a vase of flowers, causing her to jump in surprise. Paying her little heed, he began to etched his name in the water, leaving tiny glowing letters for only a few moments.

"Beddle...guys?" Lydia read the unfamiliar word out loud, and then realized what exactly it was that she was looking at. "I'm not going to say your name." Lydia insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're . . . you're evil!"

Betelgeuse smirked. "Been called worse than that." He said, shaking his head.

Lydia shivered suddenly. "Why can't I see you?" She asked him, looking directly above his head. "I can hear you, but I can't see you."

Betelgeuse shrugged, even though he knew she couldn't see the gesture. "I'm not exactly what you would call 'all there.'" He said, his voice giving her the distinct impression of a Cheshire cat.

"Well, then." Lydia frowned and grabbed a stick of sage. Betelgeuse smiled when he saw it, and grabbed her lighter, dangling it with invisible fingers in front of her.

"Really, Babes. A cleansing spell?" Betelgeuse laughed. "I may not have much of a form, but I am certainly stronger than any old cleansing spell." If it wasn't so humorous that she would think that he could be defeated that easily, he might have been slightly offended.

"Show yourself." Lydia demanded through clenched teeth, her eyes narrowed in anticipation.

Betelgeuse smiled in spite of himself. "You know what to do to make me appear." He told her with an air of false ease. "Just say my name."

Lydia's brows drew together. "Does Juno know you're here?" She asked, but she didn't expect him to answer her truthfully. No matter his answer, she still was going to ask Barbara and Adam to pay Juno a little visit.

"Yes." Betelgeuse told her, truthfully. "I've been here for quiet some time."

"How long?" Lydia asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.

"Since you didn't marry me."

Lydia racked her brain. It had been years since that fateful day in the fall, when Betelgeuse had saved Barbara and Adam from a fate worse than death. It had been four years since she had last seen him.

"Four years, huh?" She placed her hands on her hips in the universal sign of female aggravation. "You expect me to believe that you have been following me around for four years and you didn't once try to bother me?"

"Oh, believe me I tried." Betelgeuse told her, letting go of his physical form to opt for the light mist. "But there is little power in me if no one is willing to see me."

"Why can't I see you, then?" Lydia asked with a pretty scowl.

"Because." Betelgeuse answered, slipping back in to the physical form. "Humans try to overlook the strange and unusual. And while you are by no means not strange or unusual, I was just too much for even you to handle."

"Why me?" Lydia asked. "Why now?"

Betelgeuse graced her first question with an answer. "Because you said my name, and it gave me the power to speak." He chose to ignore the later question, because it was one that even he didn't feel comfortable answering.

"So you. . . You aren't going to hurt me?" Lydia looked down at her feet, her voice becoming suddenly very light and meek. "I mean, not that I'll believe you or anything. But. . ."

"Yeah, babes; I'm gonna hurt you." Betelgeuse said smartly. "I'm gonna break your heart to bits."

Lydia scowled up at the space that he occupied, still staring blindly out at him. "You can't hurt me." She challenged him, sounding suddenly much braver than she actually was.

"Babes," Betelgeuse said with a wry grin, "You ain't seen nothing yet."


	3. At a Marriageable Age

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

* * *

_"One of the lessons of history is that 'nothing' is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."_ **- Will Durant**

* * *

**Chapter Three**

* * *

Betelgeuse had floated aimlessly somewhere in a space that did not exist above Lydia's bed, trying to work out the schematics of the whole situation. It seemed to him, that somewhere along the line, he had missed something.

_Like why Lydia had kept the ring that had somehow __miraculously__ found it's way on to her finger. _Betelgeuse was sure that if he unlived to be a thousand, he would never understand that one. He didn't _remember_ putting the ring on her finger, only that he had been in the process of doing so when that blasted sandworm decided to make a meal of him.

_How had Barbara ever managed to control that beast, anyways?_ A question that he thought whenever he wanted to amuse himself. Barbara and sandworms aside, he still had many unanswered questions surrounding a certain girl.

_Woman._ He corrected himself, and shifted uneasily as he thought about her lithe form, dark and frail and full of life. _Lydia is a woman._

He wasn't surprised that the thought of her got his ectoplasm running hard south. It seemed that he always felt stronger when he was around her, more alive when he thought of her.

He supposed it was because, over the years of haunting her, having no one around but her, he grew attached to the girl. Over the last four years, with her strange sense of selflessness and kindness, she had just sort of... grown on him.

He scoffed. _Yeah, _he thought. _Like a fungus. _

Of course, when he had first thought - and this was quite some time ago, to be sure - that he cared even a lick about the girl, he had opposed the idea so violently he had almost lost his connection to the human world. But now, the more and more he thought about it, he was beginning to realize that the affection that he held for the girl –which is twice as strong as hate, three times as strong as apathy, but surprisingly, just a bit weaker than humor - was one of the few things strong enough to give him form, and. . .

Lydia scowled as she walked back in to the apartment, and the look in her eyes was more than a little flat.

In contrast, Betelgeuse's face lit up as he floated in to the living room with a wry grin on his face. "Hey, babes. Have a nice walk?"

Lydia _humphed _and flounced in to the kitchen, her wet hair dripping behind her.

Betelgeuse sighed and magicked in a towel, and then focused what little form he had in to his hands, making them just solid enough to dry her hair, but in the process, losing any visibility that he had left.

"You'll catch a cold, and then you'll die." Betelgeuse told her, sounding the world like a worried mother.

Lydia scoffed. "And wouldn't that just make your life a living hell?" She said, moving about the kitchen so quickly that he almost couldn't keep up.

It had to say _something _for him that he did.

"As a matter of fact, it would make my life a living hell." Betelgeuse said, his brows frowning in frustration.

"Yeah, because then who would summon you back in to physicality?" Lydia asked, racking her brain to remember if physicality was a word or not.

"Well, for one thing, I don't need to be summoned any more." Betelgeuse told her, and dropped the towel in favor of picking up her left hand. "I'm a married man now, and Juno said it's only a matter of weeks before I am strong enough to make another body."

"Well, then. Perhaps my death would be a good thing for you then." Lydia said, sneering. "So just let me get my cold and _leave me alone_."

Betelgeuse sighed, and shifted his form back in to mists and magic. He leaned in, trapping Lydia in the corners of her counters. However, as he had no form, it was only her fear of him that held her there.

"I told you, Lydia, that it would make my life a living hell. And that's because maybe, just maybe, I don't want to see my wife end up in the same shit-ass situation that I'm in."

Lydia hissed, and recoiled. "We're not married." She insisted, flipping her hair as she turned to face the wall. "And if we are, it isn't recognized in my world anyways, only the neither world, so you'll just have to wait for me to die, then cross over, if you ever want to even have a _chance_ with me." Lydia blushed, realizing what she had just said. "Which you don't!" She amended.

Betelgeuse shook his head. "Neither world isn't enough for ya, huh babes? You want it to be valued in the human world, too?" He said, a mischievous smile quirked on his lips. "Fine." He said.

There were no special effected with his disappearing like there had been when Betelgeuse sent Barbara to Saturn. He was just there, and then he. . . wasn't.

Lydia stayed frozen until the warmth set back in to the room. "_Betelgeuse?" _Lydia whispered quietly. It had been enough time to have started to count over.

But. . . nothing.

Lydia barely managed to not do a hop-skip. _Betelgeuse had left the building!_

But something in his last comment made her uneasy. Make the marriage count in the human world? There was no way he could do that. After all, she had never signed any papers, and neither had Charles or Delia.

She shrugged. "If it gets him out of my hair. . ."


	4. Monster

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

* * *

_I range the fields with pensive tread,_

_And pace the hollow rooms_

_And feel (companion of the dead)_

_I'm living in the tombs._

**- Abraham Lincoln, "Memory"**

* * *

Chapter Four

Lydia looked out her window at the pouring rain and sighed. It had been a full day, and Betelgeuse was still nowhere to be found. She would walk around the apartment and feel bits and traces of him everywhere, but. . .

Not that she cared, or anything. It just made her uneasy waiting for the shoe to drop.

Her wondering was interrupted by the grumble of her stomach, and she sighed. There had been no food in the kitchen when she had been scrounging yesterday, right before Betelgeuse had pulled his vanishing act. She had gone to McDonald's since then. But, she knew that she couldn't hold out on shopping any longer.

She turned, and grabbed her keys.

"Please don't come back while I'm out." She pleaded with no one, and then she rationalized it with: "I don't trust you in my house."

If Betelgeuse had been there, he would have laughed.

But Betelgeuse was a world away.

.

.

.

.

.

Betelgeuse sat in the neither world waiting room, his foot tapping to the rhythm that played on the intercom. _"Damn, I wish I could be your lover. I'd rock you till daylight comes."_

"I'll bet you would," whispered Miss Argentina, who shook her head and giggled before looking up. "Are you the only person out there?"

Betelgeuse nodded. Over the course of the last few hours, everyone – save him – had been dealt with.

Miss Argentina sighed. "Well, I guess Juno has no other option then." She said, pushing a button so that he could enter the offices. "You know ze way." She said with a wave of her hand.

Clicking his heels far more than what was necessary, Betelgeuse's walk had a sort of bounce in it that could only be described as a dance.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Lydia walked in the alley between her apartment and the store like she had a hundred thousand times before and balanced the two grocery bags in her arms a bit uneasily, tottering them somewhere between "I'm gonna fall!" and "My oh my, isn't this precarious?" She sighed as the rain began to pour harder, soaking her and the brown bags.

"Well," Lydia said sardonically. "It's already raining, so it can't get any worse."

There was an audible click from behind her, and Lydia froze as she felt the cool bite of metal press against the small of her back.

"Stupid girl, don't you know better than to walk in alleys at night?" An unfamiliar, hard voice told her, while one hand etched around her waist and slipped between her legs. "There are all sorts of oogey boogies that just want to take a bite out of you."

Lydia, who was used to oogey boogies who were all kinds of worse than this mugger, frowned, and turned around. "Listen, I've had a rough last few days, and I am out of food at my flat." She put on bag on the ground, and reached in to her pocket for her wallet. "Let's see. . . I've got a fifty, that's it, so if I give it to you, will you leave me alone?"

"It's a start," the man laughed and shook his head. "But I'm not really ooking for money."

Lydia paled, and took an unconscious step back. "Then, what do you want?"

The man's smirk was the thing of nightmares, and she knew in that moment that there were all kinds of evil worse than. . .

"BETELGEUSEBETELGEUSEBETELGEU SE!"

.

.

.

.

.

Betelgeuse leaned against the inner door of Lydia's flat, and smiled at Juno.

Who was, in return, scowling so fiercely he thought he might go up in smoke.

"It's been one day – one day- – and already you have come to bother me?" Juno screeched.

"Well, I wanted to keep you busy. You know, stall for time so that you can't find your way to. . . oh, how did you put it?" Betelgeuse smiled and used Juno's determined voice. "I will find a way to exorcise you before you come back in to power. You're far too powerful to be left free in this world." Betelgeuse grinned. "I'm far too powerful."

"Horseshit!" Juno said, her faced racked up in a perfect scowl. "You never worry about things like that, so why did you come to the Neither world?"

Betelgeuse shrugged. "I want my wedding papers."

Juno blinked in confusion. "Why?"

Sighing, Betelgeuse answered. "Because Lydia wont see it as a real marriage until I have human world proof that it is."

Juno scoffed. "What do you care whether she sees it as a marriage or not? It still counts, if that's what you're worried about. You'll still be free."

Betelgeuse shifted uneasily. "I know." He said, suddenly looking like a thoroughly chastised child.

"Then. . . why?" Juno beckoned for him to have a seat.

"She's says that we're not married, and we are!" Betelgeuse told her, feeling completely out of place baring his soul to his former companion. "And if I have the papers, she'll believe me."

Juno laughed. "Really, now. Why do you want the papers? Be honest for once, B."

Betelgeuse frowned, not entirely surprised that Juno didn't believe him. "So I can burn them in front of her." He lied angrily.

Juno shook her head. "That sounds more like the Beetle that I know, but it's not the truth either, is it?"

Betelgeuse scowled at her. "What do you care what the truth is?" He snapped angrily. "It's not your place to withhold marriage papers, and we both know it, so cough them up." He thrust out an angry hand.

"It's not that simple." Juno said with a frown. "I have to go find the justice of peace that married you, and then I have to convince Charles and Delia to sign it, and-"

"I'll forge it." Betelgeuse said. "We both know that they were there, so it's the same thing, right?"

Juno looked uneasy. "It is not the same thing at all! Besides that, then I've still got to-"

"BETELGEUSEBETELGEUSEBETELGEU SE!" Came Lydia's frantic scream from somewhere far away.

Juno and Betelgeuse froze, and both their faces paled considerably before Betelgeuse disappeared in a puff of smoke and fire.


	5. Too Little, Too Late

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

* * *

_"Record and play, after years of endless rewind;_

_Yesterday wasn't half as tough as this time."_

Barenaked Ladies, Too Little Too Late

* * *

**Chapter Five**

Betelgeuse had known, not only from the tone that she had called him, but from the simple fact that she had called him, that something terrible was happening to her. Because he knew that deep inside, Lydia despised him. She deserved to despise him. And he knew that she knew that calling him would run out her time, and give him the physical body he needed to do. . . anything, really.

He knew that someone had better have been dead or dying for her to even consider calling him out.

He knew that she was probably scared out of her wits, because being witless was the only way she would have ever called him.

He had known that, in that case, she would probably be relieved to see him.

What Betelgeuse hadn't known, before he was summoned to defend her, was what would happen to him.

Lydia, who he would have been terrified to see her face swollen and bloody from being backhanded with a handgun, was being covered by a man whose entire demeanor was taut with anxiety.

Betelgeuse didn't think to kill him right then and there.

_He was going to make him suffer for touching her!_

Without conscious thought, Betelgeuse magicked the man off of Lydia, and threw him against the opposite brick alley wall. Using a bit of his sadistic tendencies, he threw him back against Lydia's wall. And when he saw what the man had done to Lydia's face, he threw him in the air and then slammed him back to earth.

Lydia, who was already shaking, cringed at the sound of the rapist's breaking bones.

"What. Did. He. Do. To. You." Betelgeuse hissed, his eyes glowing yellow in the darkness, his pupils thin slits like a snakes eyes.

Lydia shook her head quickly, realizing that maybe for the first time that she met him, Betelgeuse wasn't in his right mind.

And it scared her a little bit more than her assaulter.

"Nothing!" Lydia insisted. "Nothing; he didn't do anything to me!"

Betelgeuse shot the man a glare, and Lydia her a sound that remarkably resembled that of ice crunching in someone's teeth. Her attacker screamed and clutched his arm.

"You bastard! What are you? _What are you_!?" He screamed, and shook his head a bit as he sat up.

Betelgeuse's eyes narrowed. "I'm your reaper." He said solemnly.

After Lydia saw the man's Achilles tendon tear, and him fall limply back to the ground, she decided that she didn't want to see anything anymore.

The man must have passed out from blood loss or pain, because he was no longer screaming when Betelgeuse leaned down, and picked Lydia up in his arms. "And you." He said, standing her upright and then giving her a good shake. "What were you thinking, walking back here alone?"

"I've. . . always done it, and no one has ever hurt me before." Lydia told him, looking at her feet so that she didn't have to look him in the eyes.

"You were never alone before, idiot!" Betelgeuse pointed out, and then pulled her close. "And you'll never be alone again, you got that?"

Not surprisingly, that scared Lydia a little bit more than her attacker. But she had no one left to call.

"Betelgeuse. . ." She whispered, and looked him in the eyes.

Some of the madness that had gathered there was vanishing, and he reached forward with a shaking hand to touch the wound on the side of her face. "You're... you're bleeding." He said simply. Lydia wasn't positive, but she thought that for a second, she saw pure terror in his eyes. "He made you bleed."

Had she ever asked why Betelgeuse was so filthy, he would have told her that it was the only way he knew to keep sickness away, because that's what he had been taught in his lifetime. However, all the grime that he had acquired in his lifetime had been washed away when he drowned, by staggering in to a bog pit. It had taken him years to acquire any new dirt, because it was exceedingly difficult to change your physical appearance from the day that you died.

But Lydia didn't know any of that, and Betelgeuse wasn't in the mood to explain it to her.

And as sheets of rain fell down around them, on them, most of that carefully cultivated grim was running down his face. If Betelgeuse wasn't so scared, he would have noticed. If Lydia was any less, she wouldn't have.

"You know," She said, lifting a tentative hand to cup his cheek, "When you wash away that muck and yuck, you're actually kinda handsome." She told him, tracing her thumb against his high cheek bones.

Later, Lydia would offer herself no excuses as to why she kissed him. It was just. . .

"Perfect. . ." Betelgeuse whispered huskily as he gathered her up in his arms, doing well to avoid her wound.

Lydia's arms wrapped around his neck, and as she allowed him entrance in to her mouth, she began to sob quietly.

"What's," another kiss, soft and bitter, "-wrong?" He nibbled on her lower lip, reclaiming her mouth before she had the chance to answer him. Betelgeuse asked as he continued to assault her senses.

"I was _sacred. _I was so scared." Lydia said, tilting her head up to give him access to her throat.

"Of him?" Betelgeuse asked, smiling sardonically. "You know, if it's in my power to stop it, no one will ever hurt you."

Lydia smiled as he pushed her against the wall. Her adrenaline was still running high, and the way he held her so gently, she could almost forget the fact that he was a murderer.

_A murderer._

Betelgeuse knew the second he had lost her.

Lydia froze, and rationality returned to her. "Please let me down." She whispered quietly, blushing and feeling more than a little ashamed. "Please."

Betelgeuse ceded her freedom to her, but only because he knew that he had won this round. "Babes." He whispered in her ear. "I would never hurt you, either."

Lydia reached down and gathered the two bags, and then carefully side-stepped the still unconscious attacker. "You already have." She said, before she continued to her apartment.

And if she had to pretend that she didn't hear the snap of her assaulter's neck, then Betelgeuse never had to know.


	6. One Step Closer

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

* * *

_"Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great."_ Ralph Waldo Emerson

* * *

**Chapter Seven **

_Progress_

Lydia wasn't surprised that when she opened the door to her apartment, Betelgeuse was leaning against a table, scowling fiercely.

And so many odd things had happened to her in the last few days, that she wasn't all that surprised when Juno began to yell at her.

"How could you have let this happen?" Juno began, and continued right on through to: "Don't you know what you've done!?"

Lydia sighed and put the bags in the kitchen. "You said yourself that it was only a matter of time until he came in to his full power again. So, what's the big deal?" She asked, putting the milk in the fridge. "I just hurried the process along is all."

Juno rubbed her temples in a circular motion. "No, that's not all." Juno said with a sad sigh. "I told you: if you summon him, he'll have his full powers again."

"So?" Lydia asked, wiping off a cardboard box of Ritz before slipping them in to her bare cupboard. "He'd have them soon enough anyways, and this way, I wasn't killed."

Juno shook her head and walked forward to wipe some of the grime that Betelgeuse's kisses had left on her face off. "Oh, you foolish, foolish girl. Don't you know that you are in so much more danger now?"

Lydia paled slightly. "What do you mean?"

"Ask him what he came to me for." Juno said, pulling out a cigarette and slipping it between her teeth. "Do it, I think you'll find the answer most humorous."

Lydia gave Betelgeuse a suspicious glance. "Beetlejuice?" She asked tentatively. "Please. . ."

Betelgeuse frowned, and shifted uneasily. "The. . . marriage certificate." He said, and was beginning to realize that if she asked him nicely, there was nothing that he wouldn't do for her.

Well, almost nothing, but he doubted she would ever ask him nicely to never come back.

Lydia nodded, and folded the first paper bag. "I see. . ." She said, not asking for an explanation.

Which struck him harder than if she had. "What's that supposed to mean?" He bristled.

Lydia shrugged. "It means just that: I see."

Juno rolled her eyes. "I'll just be going now. I'll see what I can do about the certificate, but I refuse to make you any promises."

"_I see, I see," _Betelgeuse and Lydia paid Juno no heed as she vanished. "But you don't just 'see.'" Betelgeuse insisted. "Do you?"

Lydia shrugged. "I see well enough. And besides, if I were to ask, would you really tell me the truth?"

Betelgeuse recoiled as if he had been physically slapped, and Lydia immediately regretted her words. "Listen, Beetlejuice, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it." She sighed and walked in to the living room, and sat on the couch. She patted the seat beside her lightly, and smiled at him. "Come over and tell me why you wanted to get that certificate."

"What's the point?" Betelgeuse said, frowning. "You wouldn't believe me anyways."

Lydia sighed. "Yes, Beetle-"

"Don't say it a _third time!" _Betelgeuse hissed, and Lydia respoke.

"Yes, B, I would." She insisted, and stood. She grabbed the towel that he had used to dry her hair with the day before and walked over to him. Then, almost unsure of herself, she rubbed down his face.

Betelgeuse stared at her, the affection he was getting foreign and strange. He stilled her hands with his own, and then leaned in. "Would you really?"

Lydia nodded. "Yes." She said, and backed it up with a smile. "I would."

Betelgeuse sighed, and suddenly they were on the couch. Lydia eeped, and jumped forward, wrapping her arms around Betelgeuse's neck. Looking from the couch cushion to his eyes -

_which were surprisingly close_

- and then to his lips -

_if he could breath, she would have felt it_

- and then jumped out of his arms and back on to the couch.

"Don't do that." Lydia said, trembling.

"What?" Betelgeuse said, smiling. "We're here, aren't we?"

Lydia sighed, and gave in. There was no point fighting with him when he was back in good humors. "So. . ." she said, trying to change the subject. "Why did you go to get the marriage certificate?"

Betelgeuse smiled at her, and put his hand on hers in a manner so gentle it caught Lydia completely off guard. "You said that you wouldn't honor the marriage unless you had proof that it was real." Betelgeuse said simply. "So, I was going to get you the proof."

Lydia shook her head, and retreated slightly, her hand on the ring she wore on a chain. "No I didn't." she insisted. "I said that it only counted in the neither world, and so you couldn't say you were married to me here."

Betelgeuse smiled mischievously. "But the marriage certificate is universal. I bring it here, and file the right paper work, and it counts here too."

Surprisingly, Lydia didn't pale. She didn't get nauseous. She just sighed. "Why do you want to be married to me so badly, anyways?" She asked. "I'm not that pretty. Definitely not that experienced, and I probably don't like you," she said, frowning. "Probably. Not to mention the fact that you're already free. You don't need to stick around."

Betelgeuse shook his head. "You just don't get it, do you?" He said, standing quickly. "No; you don't. It's just too unbelievable to you, to all of you, that I could... that I would..." He scoffed scornfully. "Forget it. You don't ever forget it, Lydia – you DON'T like me. You despise me. And you will never, ever, consider me your friend." He said, probably more harshly than he meant.

Lydia bared her teeth. "Why do you act like that?" Lydia asked, scowling.

"Like what?" Betelgeuse scowled right back.

"Like. .. like I don't matter or something!" Lydia said.

"'Or something.'" Betelgeuse told her, before storming in to her kitchen.

Lydia clenched her eyes, and got up to go to her bedroom. "I'm going to bed." She told him, and shut the door.

From the kitchen, Betelgeuse strained his ears for the sound of the lock sliding in to place.

When he didn't hear it, he smiled.

He was making progress.


	7. other things that start with 'G'

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

* * *

_Trust no one unless you have eaten much salt with him._

_Cicero_

* * *

**Chapter **Seven

* * *

Lydia heard once, somewhere, that when something was wrong, you woke up with the instinctual knowledge and were immediately uneasy, because you had woken up with your guard up.

Whoever came up with that obviously didn't drink coffee.

Because Lydia did not wake up with the instinctual knowledge that something was wrong – she woke up with a headache and cotton mouth.

The information from the previous night – that she was married, and that there was a ghost living. . . err, residing. . . in her house with her – didn't register until she came out of the bedroom was abruptly assaulted –

With the smell of bacon and paprika.

She blinked twice, once in confusion and then again in annoyance, and made her way in to the kitchen with a scowl on her face.

"Good Mornin,' babes." Her husband - she shuddered at the thought - leaned in and kissed her blithely on the cheek as she filled the coffee pot up in a dazed, sleep like state. His kiss was light, a breath of wind, because he still lacked a physical form, but it made Lydia uneasy none the less.

"Debatable." She groaned out, and poured the water in to the coffee maker. Looking behind her, she saw that she would have to maneuver around Betelgeuse to get to the coffee grinds. "Hey, would you mind –"

He snapped his fingers, and the coffee can opened itself, and a tiny tablespoon hovered in the air between them, carrying a scoop full of coffee grinds to the machine. "You like your coffee strong, isn't that right?" Betelgeuse asked, a wry grin toying at the edges of his lips.

Lydia smiled coyly. "Yes I do." She said, and flounced out of the kitchen feeling more than a little unbalanced.

"Geez." Betelgeuse mumbled in to the frying pan. "She's got a bee in her bonnet, eh?"

Lydia rolled her eyes and swatted at the bee that Betelgeuse had unintentionally summoned. "What are you making?" She asked, making an effort to make peace.

"Bacon and potatoes." Betelgeuse threw the answer over his shoulder. "Lots of grease, to fatten you up."

Lydia blanched. "What!?" She exclaimed, turning on her heels to go back in to the kitchenette. "What is this, Hansel and Gretel?"

Betelgeuse's brows drew together in a tight line. "Who are they?" He asked, not bothering to hide his confusion.

"They're. . . they." Lydia sighed. "Oh, never mind. It's not important. Why exactly are you trying to 'fatten me up?'"

Betelgeuse shrugged. "You're too skinny. Not healthy for you. You need some more meat on your bones."

Lydia was pleased despite herself. After all, any man that thought that five pounds over weight was 'too skinny' was alright in her book. Creeping slowly back in to the kitchen, Lydia felt her mouth begin to water. "Wow." She inhaled deeply, and peered over Betelgeuse's shoulder. "That smells great. . ."

Betelgeuse felt her, the warmth from her body warming his ectoplasm. "Did you know that when a human enters a space, the temperature immediately raises ten degrees?" The fact - that he couldn't remember quite where he had heard - rose to his mind and then to his lips.

Lydia nodded. "Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451." She cited. At Betelgeuse's raised eyebrow, she shrugged. "It's one of my favorites."

"Et tu, babes?" He said with a grin, and flipped the potatoes with the hand of someone who was experienced in cooking. "Would you get a plate out?"

Lydia nodded. As she was reaching in to the cupboard, she suddenly realized something. "How is it that you can hold the spatula and the frying pan?" She inquired.

Betelgeuse froze for a moment, obviously deep in thought, before he answered. "Have you ever seen the movie Ghost?"

Lydia shook her head, and placed the plate on the counter top beside him.

"Well," He began, "it's not so much that I can touch it, it's more that I can't _not _touch it."

"And what exactly does that mean?" Lydia asked, confused.

Betelgeuse shrugged. "It never really occurred to me that I couldn't touch it, but now that you mention it. . ." As Lydia watched, Betelgeuse's hand began to fade from view, and the spatula fell with a clammer to the stove.

Reacting immediately, Lydia rushed forward to grab the handle of the frying pan.

And froze when she was suddenly very, very cold.

"Lydia?" Betelgeuse voice was heavy and husky from somewhere close to her ear, the tension in it mimicking her own. "_You're inside of me." _

Lydia shivered at the thought, and jumped back, colliding with the refrigerator. "Well. . ." She murmured, trying to ignore the rising blush on her cheeks. "So I was."

Betelgeuse's gaze on her was hungry, and not unlike that of a predators. "_Do it again_." He said, standing perfectly still.

Lydia's laugh came out as a dry breath. "No!" She exclaimed, and worried the task of putting food on the plate. "Pervert. . ."

She split the food evenly down the middle, and grabbed the ketchup and two forks. "Well?" She asked, moving for the living room. "Are you going to come eat with me?"

Betelgeuse tried to ignore the quick spurt of joy that she was willing to share from the same plate. "No thanks, babes. I would make a huge mess of everything if I did." He said, passing his hand through the kitchen's divider.

Lydia blushed a bit, and sat down. "Oh. . . well then."

"Indeed."

The meal was a silent one, and highly uncomfortable. Lydia tried not to squirm under Betelgeuse's intense scrutiny, and Betelgeuse made - somewhat of - an effort to try to pretend that the fork that she kept slipping in and out and _in _her mouth wasn't –

Lydia slammed the fork down and glowered at him. "Do I have something on my face?" She demanded.

Betelgeuse smirked. "Yeah." He said with a quick grin, and leaned in. "You've got a little something right there. . ."

He indulged himself in a taste of her, dragging his tongue up from her chin to her ear, where he focused all of his being in to forming solid teeth, which he nipped her lazily with.

He waited for her indignant protests.

Nothing prepared him for her moan of pleasure.

Tilting her head back, to allow him more access, Lydia smirked as Betelgeuse disappeared from view. Having thoroughly distracted him, he wasn't able to maintain his wispy form and had dispersed over the room. "_There," s_he said, and continued wolfed down the remaining bits of her breakfast feeling quite satisfied with herself. "Since you clearly don't know the meaning of the word _dont, _and I figure you're only going for reaction _anyway, _let's see how you like that, creep."

_I'm still here. . . _She heard his voice wrap around her, making her drop her dining ware in to the sink with a lot more clanging than she meant.

Shivering, she took up her coat and pocketed her keys, which Betelgeuse promptly removed.

Lydia snatched them out of thin air and bared her teeth in a mock snarl. "I've got to go to work." She told him, and slipped her feet in to some shoes.

Betelgeuse frowned, but as he was still incorporeal, the effect was lost on her. "I can take care of you."

"Take care of me?" Lydia asked with a laugh that came out a bit too squeaky. "You can't even eat breakfast with me!"

She slipped out the front door, and glared at the room behind her. "Try not to get your grime everywhere today, okay?"

She didn't wait to hear his grumbled response.


	8. Muck n' Yuck

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

* * *

_The important thing to remember when you're going to do something brave is to have someone around to witness it._

_Anonymous_

* * *

**Chapter Nine **

* * *

". . . And I'm not _that _dirty." Betelgeuse grumbled miserably as he watched the door close behind Lydia with click.

And this time, when he didn't hear the lock slide in to place, he didn't feel quite so accomplished as he had the last time.

"Bitch. . ." he muttered, and shuffled around her flat.

It was much smaller than he had initially thought – and her kitchenette was more of a kitchenette_tte_ than anything else. It was so small that it was a wonder that they had both fit in it in the first place.

"_You're inside of me." _Betelgeuse shivered as he remembered the feeling, and slumped down against the coach. He had known that it was _possible _for people to walk inside of him. But he never figured that it could be so. . . _intimate._

The instant that she had entered him, his temperature of his entirity had risen just as surely hers had dropped. He had seen his own aura – briefly – flare at the gesture, and he instinctively knew that the length of time for him to solidify had shortened a great deal.

As well as he patience. Now that he knew what it felt like when she was inside of _him, _he could hardly wait to see what it would be like when _he _was the one inside of _her, _making her moan and twist against her dark bed sheets and. . .

He needed a stiff drink. Badly.

Failing that, he would settle for a good cup of coffee.

He waited until he had solidified enough to focus on making his hands physical, and couldn't stop the grin that came when it took hardly any effort at all. In fact, with little more than a thought, his entire body seemed to become more physical. Testing his new solidity, he kicked out a foot and jumped a bit, startled, when it crashed in to a cupboard with a load _clang. _

And left a rather large mud print on it.

Betelgeuse frowned and leaned down to wipe it off, only to see that there were mud tracks all around the flat where he had been pacing only a few minutes before. _Apparently, _Betelgeuse was beginning to realize _it took even less than a thought to make him solid. _

Which pleased him more than he would ever admit.

Still, he knew that Lydia wouldn't like the fact that he was muddying up her flat. Still leaning down, he untied one boot, and then the other, for the first time in almost five hundred years. "You had better appreciate this, babes." He muttered. "I wouldn't do it for anyone else. . ."

He knew that she would, if she had been there to see the gesture. _Try not to get your grime everywhere! _Lydia had complained as she left the flat.

Giving the room a cursory glance, he frowned. He knew, with out question, that if he was going to continue to be solid, he would continue to get mud everywhere.

And he knew, as he looked down at his dirtied fingertips, covered in the grime that he had so carefully applied over the last half of a millenia, what had to be done.

"You had better appreciate this, babes. . ." He grumbled, and took off his socks.

But even his feet dirtied her nice, beige carpet.

Dumping his dirtied clothes off on the floor of her bathroom, he gave the room a cautionary once-over. He hadn't been alive when showers had been invented, but he had spent long enough haunting Lydia that he had a basic idea of how everything worked. You pull a knob, and water comes out. You move the knob, it gets hotter or colder.

But what he had never really bothered to pay attention to was _which vial held what. _

Her entire bathroom reeked of perfumes and oils and shampoos. _Jasmine and Vanilla! _A bottle of lotion proudly proclaimed. _Hand picked in the dead of the night, when Jasmine is the most fragrant! _

Betelgeuse scoffed a bit at this, and continued to rummage through her lotions. _Glow. . . _a round bottle declared, _By J-Lo. _He had no idea what a J-Lo was. Or how whatever the vial contained could make you glow. _Maybe it has something to do with making your aura brighter? _

_No, no. _Betelgeuse decided as he put the vial back. _Lydia's aura isn't brighter than everyone elses. . . if anything, it's dimmer. _Which didn't make any sense to Betelgeuse at all. _Maybe these potions _dim _the aura? _

Whatever it was, Betelgeuse didn't particularly care to find out.

Just like he didn't particularly care for battling with _the shower. _

_Why couldn't she have had a bath tub? _Betelgeuse wondered, sighing heavily as he examined the cubicle-style shower. It had glass doors, which he knew steamed up when the water was hot, and a place for wash rags and soaps, as well as face washes shampoos, and conditioners. Betelgeuse groaned, and began to remove his watches.

Placing the three watches on the counter top, he grabbed a clean wash rag with a scowl on his face. _If this doesn't win her over, _Betelgeuse decided there and then _then it is a lost cause, and I may as well die. . . again. _

And then, he did the bravest thing he had ever done.

He turned on the shower.

Taking a shower isn't so bad, if you're alive. The whole experience can leave you feeling refreshed and revitalized.

For the dead, however, taking a shower was an entirely different matter.

Betelgeuse had meet a good number of ghosts - after all, he _was _a bio-excorsist - and it was not entirely uncommon for them to hang on to familiar things, like Barabara had with her insistent cleaning, even though nothing was ever _really _clean when she was done. So, while showers certainly did _clean _the few ghosts who could actually manage to hold a solid form as the water hit them, the water did nothing to refresh them.

Betelgeuse reached for Lydia's loofa, and told himself that she wouldn't mind him using it so much. Looking at the various vials, he tried to locate the one that Lydia had put on it. He remembered that it was blue, and –

_Ah ha! _He cheered in his head when he saw it, and unscrewed it unceremoniously. "Let's get this over with. . ." He mumbled and began to scrub.

The dirt on the bottom of the shower began to pile up, and Betelgeuse found himself kicking it around to help guide it down the drain in the center of the shower. As he scrubbed, he saw that his skin wasn't the light tan that he had always thought it was, but a much paler color, closer to Lydia's than anything elses.

Next, he grabbed the wash rag. The tube that held the face wash was easy to find - it read FACE WASH in big bright red letters under the _much _smaller Nuetragena - and he shuddered as he felt the tiny microbeads foaming and exfoliating his skin. Stepping back under the spray, he let the water hit him full in the face, and tilted his head back as it washed away all his filth.

Last, but certainly not least, Betelgeuse turned so that his back was hit by the water, as he had seen Lydia do many times in the past, and he reached for the large bottle that read SHAMPOO. He poured a generous amount in to his hands, and then began to lather it in to his hair.

As he scrubbed, he felt the dirt beneath his nails get washes away. _Well, _Betelgeuse shrugged, _at least I don't have to clean _those _later on. _He washed away the shampoo, and was a bit horrified at how _clean _his hair had been. Sure, it was way dirtier than Lydia's hair would ever be, but for him, it was nothing!

Sure that he had done something wrong, he washed it again. But no grime came out this time.

Shuddering, he chastised himself for not keeping up with his hair.

Reaching for the final bottle, CONDITIONER, Betelgeuse put a tiny dallop in the center of his palms. Lathering it in his hands, rather than his hair, he started at the roots and pulled out, making sure to get it on every strand of hair. This had always been his favorite part of watching Lydia bath, when she dragged the shampoo down to the ends of her long, dark hair with a smile toying at the ends of her lips. Repeating the motion, he remembered how when Lydia did it, she would let it sit for a moment, and brush her teeth in the shower while it worked on her hair.

And then Betelgeuse remembered. _I have no toothbrush! _Scowling fiercly, Betelgeuse began to think that the entire endevour had been in vain. After all, what did it matter if he was _clean _if she wouldn't kiss him because his mouth was still dirty!

_"You know," She said, lifting a tentative hand to cup his cheek, "When you wash away that muck and yuck, you're actually kinda handsome." She told him, tracing her thumb against his high cheek bones._

Betelgeuse remembered how she had reacted yesterday, when the rain had only washed a bit of his dirt off, and he groaned. Tossing a look up to the cadey, where he knew she kept her toothbrush, he reached for it like a dutiful child who was determined to eat all of his vegetables. Applying a little bit of toothpaste, he brushed his teeth rigorously, spitting and reapplying until when he spit, it was clear.

Mumbling angrily, he turned off the shower and reached for a soft, fluffy towel.

And, to his pleasure and dismay, when he dried off, he left no marks on the towel.

Running it over his hair a bit so that it would absorb some of the moisture, he stalked over to the mirror and ran the towel over it, once, to catch his reflection.

He was shimmering a bit, because his form still lacked definition, but he could definitely make out at least one thing. . .

"I'm _clean._" He moaned in distaste, and tried to focus on how Lydia would react when she got home.

Wrapping the towel around his waist, he prayed that it would be worth it.


	9. Souveniers

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

* * *

_Why are you so kind? I've left my fears behind, and I feel so fragile._

Helen Trevillion _Letters to You. _

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

"Miss Juno?" Miss Argentina asked, knocking on the doors.

Juno looked glanced up from her paperwork which she was absolutely positive would never end, her mouth set in a thin line. "Yes, Miss Argentina, what is it?"

Miss Argentina let herself in to the room, careful to close the door behind her. "Well, it's about Lydia Deetz."

"Did you get the marriage papers?" Juno asked, putting her signature on a help voucher.

"Well. . . yes, but I think that I found something that you would be _very _interested in seeing." Miss Argentina handed Juno the marriage papers first, a file on Lydia Deetz second. "Read the last paragraph on the page." Miss Argentina pressed.

Juno sighed, knowing that she was wasting her time on this. But something in Miss Argentina's eyes seemed a bit. . . well, desperate, so Juno skimmed over it once. She froze at the last line of the last paragraph. "Oh." She said, and then reread it, much more carefully. "Oh."

"Yes." Miss Argentina said, shaking her head.

Reading it over again, Juno felt more than a bit unnerved.

"Well, it would explain why Betelgeuse is so fond of the poor girl." She murmured, shaking her head. "Oh God, this isn't good."

.

.

.

.

.

.

Lydia cracked the door to her apartment as quietly as she could, not sure what to expect. Work had ran longer than she had expected – and, since as a law intern, there was always an unbelievable amount of work to be done, late was _very _late.

She was certain that Betelgeuse would have already popped in to her work to get her.

She certainly wasn't expecting _this. _

Betelgeuse slept, floating contently in a wispy, half-corporeal form in the dim light of the single candle that he must have lighten. It had burned low, and the wax pooled on the plate he had had the foresight set it on. There was one plate in front across from him, filled with what looked like Angel Hair Pasta. Jack's Mannequin crooned up at her, singing quietly on her CD player –

_(Hours pass, and she still counts the minutes that I am not there_

_I swear I didn't mean for it to be like this)_

- and the shadows cast off from the candle danced on Betelgeuse's face, which was very obviously more solid than it had been that morning.

Betelgeuse had heard her creep inside, and had come out of his sleep-like state.

Much like the shower hadn't refreshed him, he hadn't _really _been asleep. Sleep, like most comforts, is only necessary if you are alive. When you are asleep your body shuts down and begins to focus only on fixing the damages that the day has left on your body. And Betelgeuse didn't have a body.

So what he did _wasn't _sleep. But it was . . . nice.

So nice, he had allowed himself to come out of it slowly when she came in. Which was probably not a good thing, because when he looked over at her, giving her a lazy smile, she was sitting on the ground, leaning against the door, sobbing in to her arms.

Betelgeuse was up in an instant, and next to her.

"Lydia?" He beckoned, toying with the ends of her hair. "I. . . I took a shower today."

Her head didn't snap up, like he had expected it to, and when she did look up at him with her dark, puffy eyes, there wasn't any wild astonishment in them. "Stupid." She said, rubbing at her tears.

And Betelgeuse found himself utterly confused, and wondering how men managed to deal with women when they got like _this. _"You aren't stupid." He told her, and rubbed his thumb in soft circles on her cheek, following the lines of her tears.

"Not me," she said, "You! You're being stupid."

Something in her tone was so childish that Betelgeuse was more amused than insulted. "And just how am _I _being stupid, Lydia?"

"You're being so nice. . ." she grumbled, and turned her face up towards him, frowning. "And that is just not fair. Didn't you say that I am supposed to hate you?" Tears welled in her eyes, the accumulation of a hard day's work on top of a hard life. "Why are you being so nice to me?!"

Betelgeuse kept his eyes closed, and his brows drawn together. "That just doesn't make any sense." He said, opening his eyes.

" 'Doesn't have to." Lydia pouted, and slipped her hands in to his hair.

"Okay then," Betelgeuse conceded. "But why isn't it fair?"

Lydia shrugged. "Because I'm just going to have to be mean to you again in the morning." She promised as she stepped closer, and as Lydia invaded he felt his aura flare again, just like it had when she had stepped in to him in the kitchen. His entire entity was set aflame, and he was tempted to reach out an touch her, hold her; but was too afraid of her rejection to try.

"You really did take a shower, didn't you?" She asked, toying with his hair.

"I used your toothbrush." He admitted, blowing absently in her face. "Minty, right?"

Lydia smiled. "Well, I wish you hadn't but I guess that it doesn't really matter that much, does it?"

"Why's that?"

"Well you've already kissed me once, last night," she put a finger up against her lip, and then her brow drew together. "And it's kind of like the same thing. That reminds me: you can't just go around kissing girl! I don't know how they did things when you were alive, but that's just rude these days! So I don't want to see you kissing me or anyone else unless they say it's okay, okay?"

"So what you are saying is that there is a line that I am not supposed to cross, is that right?"

Lydia nodded furiously. "Right. Personal space."

"I see." Betelgeuse covered his mouth with his hand to hide his smile. "Well, I don't really know where the line is actually at, you know," Betelgeuse took one step forward, then another. Predictably, Lydia stepped back until her back was against the wall and she looked up at him, scowling.

"What are you doing?" Lydia asked, face turning red with embarrassment. "You can't just..."

He put his finger to hers and smiled. "Now _Lydia,_" he said, smiling. "I don't know how your world works, and I need someone to teach me," he leaned in, just a bit further, in what he knew was too close for comfort for her. "So you'll have to tell me when to stop..."He hissed, leaning in to her slowly.

And then, _she_ stopped.

Betelgeuse glanced up, and glared at Juno. "Unfreeze her, and go _away." _He ground out through clenched teeth, not letting go of his hold on Lydia.

Juno laughed. "Oh, I don't know about all that." She said. Betelgeuse's aura flared up, and she took an unconscious step back. "I've got your wedding papers." She said, more defensively than she meant to.

Betelgeuse gave her a forced smile. "Then give them to me, _and go away."_

Juno had also brought _another _set of papers – papers that determined Betelgeuse and Lydia's fates. For a moment, she considered giving them to him as well. But then, she saw something that made her change her mind.

Betelgeuse scooped Lydia up like a freshly made bride, scowling and muttering something that Juno didn't catch. She thought that it sounded like _and I was really getting somewhere with her, for a change. _But she couldn't be sure.

Carrying her like a slumbering bride, he kicked open the door to her bedroom and set her on the foot of her bed as he pulled back her comforter, which was a perfect shade of dark blue. She was the sort of person who always remembered to make her bed in the morning, and had special decorative pillows that she didn't sleep on. He took that in to consideration, and switched the pillows with the ones behind them. Only then did he put Lydia in her bed, leaving on all of her clothes save her shoes.

The actions were so well executed that Juno knew they were second nature. He hadn't thought about untieing her shoes before he took them off – he just _did _it. He hadn't thought about fluffing her pillow, or laying her arms on top of the covers when he tucked her in, so that she wouldn't feel trapped in her dreams.

He just did them.

And it made Juno's heart sink, because maybe she had misjudged him after all.

It was then that she realized that he was _clean. _

It was then that she _knew _that she had misjudged him.

"Oh, Betelgeuse." She said, and handed him his wedding papers. "I'm so sorry." She said before she could stop herself.

Betelgeuse accepted the wedding papers with distrust in his eyes. "Why?" he asked.

But Juno just shook her head, and took a long drag of a cigarette. "It's nothing." She said, and disappeared.


	10. Cigarettes

_Does he lay awake listening to your breath? Worried you smoke to many cigarettes. . . _

_- The Calendar that Hung Itself_, Bright Eyes

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Lydia woke up with the sun in her face, feeling more than a little confused. Her last thoughts of the evening before was that she thought that Betelgeuse was about to kiss her again, but after that. . .

Nothing.

She got out of bed and was happy to see all of her clothes were still on. _Good, _she thought, letting out a sigh of relief. _At least he hadn't taken advantage of me_.

Though when she was younger, he'd never been good to her and she had always assumed the worst about him, he had been a quiet presence in her life that she hadn't noticed until it was absent. High School, college; he'd been there through it all with her, a silent sentential keeping quiet guardianship over her.

And she? Well, she had been his unwitting child bride.

Lydia looked at the ring around her neck and frowned.

_Why had she kept it?_ He hadn't been kind, and he certainly wasn't terribly attractive, and even still, something about his otherworldliness that spoke to her, beckoned her to keep this souvenir from the time that she had tangoed with the King of all Snakes and come out on top.

"Lydia?" Betelgeuse questioned from the other room. "You want cereal this morning, or should I make breakfast again?"

She opened her mouth, instinctively ready to ask him if he wanted to go out for breakfast. After all, that's what she did every Sunday. But then she froze.

Because of _course _Betelgeuse couldn't go out to breakfast. Nobody would be able to see him.

Lydia suddenly felt so crestfallen that she lay back down in bed and pretended to be asleep, in case he came in.

The absurdity of their relationship hit her then, and it hit her hard. The simple, sad fact of the matter was there was _no_ relationship between them, and she couldn't ever really have one, even if she wanted to . . . not a long lasting one, anyway. _What's his plan, anyways? _Lydia wondered. _So we're married... so what? That's never meant anything before, and it doesn't really mean anything now. Besides that, __what's he going to do? Hang around here for the rest of eternity? _She could picture him in her home. _Is he going to sit around and watch me get old, and turn to dust? _The answer, Lydia knew instinctively, was yes.

For the first time since she met him, she realized that that was _exactly _the sort of thing that he would do. He was hard headed and obstinate as stone – if he had had family alive when he died, she had no doubt that he had hung around them until long after they died too.

More than just him though, what sort of toll would their relationship take on her?

She would give in to him eventually; if she was being perfectly honest with herself, now that he wasn't trying to kill her, he was actually quite charming... in his own, twisted way. If he kept pressing her _just right – _and he had spent more than enough time around her to know what buttons to push to get what he wanted, even if she knew next to nothing about him – eventually, she would give in to his advances. Normal men had never really done anything for her anyway.

And then what? If she did give in to her _husband, _was she really willing to sacrifice having a normal life, filled with all sorts of the normal things that she had begun to strive for – marriage, kids, _grandkids _– just to be with him? He would drive her crazy, and she would be the only one who would ever see him.

_Well, _she thought with a feeble attempt at humor, _at least when I'm in the mental hospital he'll be able to visit me whenever he wants – no one will be able to stop that. _

Suddenly, Lydia felt the room get cold, and when her heart didn't race and her pulse didn't quicken, she knew that it wasn't Betelgeuse that had just materialized behind her. "Lydia?" Juno asked, sitting on the edge of her bed, holding a small stack of papers and a cigarette between her teeth.

Lydia sat up, startled. "What are you doing here, Juno?" she asked, and threw a worried glance at the door.

"We need to talk, and _he _won't be interrupting us." Juno assured her.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I have powers that he could never dream of having." She assured her. "I gave him the wedding papers." She told her.

Lydia frowned, and wondered if Juno had heard her earlier thoughts. She wanted to talk to the old woman, to open up to her. To ask what she thought, because frankly, she was beginning to realize that there was no one else that she could ask. No one would believe her – probably not even Barbara and Adam, who were ghosts themselves. Definitely not her parents, who looked on at the whole 'otherworldly' thing with their noses a bit in the air, because they still didn't believe that they could really get hurt.

Lydia had no one else to talk about him with, and never would, but instead of asking for guidance, she found herself asking about her death.

"Why did you do it?" Lydia asked. "I mean, you were getting older, so why would you commit suicide?"

Juno laughed, a choked sound that Lydia knew she didn't _have _to have. . . ghosts didn't have lungs to breath, so they didn't have lungs to be caked with cigarette smoke. "There are fates worse than death, Lydia Deetz."

Lydia nodded, and accepted her dismissing tone for what it was – the end of that discussion.

"Shouldn't you be more worried now?" Juno's voice told her that she knew the answer, knew that it would take more than pretty threats and small shows of power to frighten her.

"Why would I be?" It was just another answer that Lydia knew. Rhetorical questions, as it turned out, were her forte.

The silence rang between them, hanging thick like the cloud of smoke that followed Juno everywhere. Lydia didn't speak, because she didn't know how to breach the subject that she needed to, and Juno didn't because she was not looking forward to giving Lydia the news.

As Juno sat there, watching the pale, frail girl sit perfectly still, she thought about how strong she was. She had the look of a Victorian Woman, dark and elegant, but a Victorian woman would not be so calm, so accepting. She should have been wringing her hands, or fidgeting, or breathing heavily – in a way, it made her more strange and unusual than ever that she wasn't. At least, if she was meek, she could be type casted, but as it was, Lydia was in a class all by herself. "I can see why he likes you." Lydia's head shot up, and Juno just shook her head. "What if you knew when you were going to die?"

"Beg pardon?" Lydia asked, sure that she had missed some important part of the conversation.

"That's why I committed suicide." Juno took a long drag of the cigarette, and then looked down on it affectionately as she exhaled. "God, these are good. They weren't so cheap when I was alive, and my husband would never let me have one anyways."

Lydia laughed, as she realized what that meant. "You mean to tell me that you don't actually have smoker's cough?" She giggled, and it turned into a snort, and then a full fledged, gasping for breath laugh.

Juno looked a bit offended. "I might have had it if I had ever been allowed to smoke!"

It took Lydia a few moments to stop laughing, a few moments to remember what they had been talking about before her fit of inappropriate laughter. She remembered just how inappropriate it was. "You knew when you were going to die?" She asked, her voice steady and serious once again.

Juno nodded. "I had a. . . special kind of husband." At Lydia's blank stare, Juno sighed and continued. "The kind of special husband that _you _have, my dear."

Lydia's eyes widened in realization, and she felt the ties of kinship tighten around the two of them. "Did he tell you when you were going to die?" Of all the questions she could have asked, it seemed odd that Lydia simply had to know this one.

"No." Juno shook her head. "A Civil Service worker came to my room one afternoon, and told me the time, the place, the day." Lydia couldn't help but feel sick to her stomach, and she was trying not to look to much in to why Juno was here, and why she was obviously beating around the bush. "I told her that I would not be fate's toy, and she told me that I didn't really have a choice." A drag on her cigarette hear, and Lydia tried to breath. "She told me that ghosts are attracted to the dying, because the dying release energy that gives them a giddy kind of euphoria that they can't get anywhere else, because they have no bodies to produce the chemicals. She told me that Sam was only with me because he wanted that leaking energy that the body produces as it dies."

Lydia's hand was over her throat, a protective gesture that Juno didn't think she knew she did. "I knew she was lying, trying to ease the pain. At least, that's what I want to think. Because Sam didn't want me to die, and when ghosts touch the dying, they die even faster. Sam didn't want me to die." She repeated, and looked down at her cigarette. "He didn't even want me to smoke."

"Are you two still. . ." Lydia couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.

"No." Juno stood here, and put out her cigarette. "The Suicides go to a different place than the dead. Sometimes I see him, but only every once in a while." She smiled, a sad sort of far away smile that made Lydia want to cry. "He used up all his help vouchers on me." She admitted. Her smile sharpened in to something cruel, something distant and foreboding. "Do you know why I'm here now, Lydia?"

Lydia nodded, and looked at the papers in Juno's hands. "What are those?" She asked, even though she had a good idea.

"You." She said, and handed the file to her. "You can do what you want with it. You don't have to be fate's toy; you don't have to turn out the way that I did."

Lydia took the manila envelope with shaking, anxious hands.

"Believe it or not, Miss Deetz," Juno said sadly, "He really _does _care about you... in his own way."

Lydia nodded. "I know."

Just as fast as Juno was there, Juno was gone.

"Lydia?" Betelgeuse entered the room several minutes later, hands on the ceiling. "I asked if you wanted me to make breakfast?" It was then that he saw her, on the floor by her bed, sobbing and rocking and clutching a manila folder. He was at her side in an instant, the space of a pin needle separating them. "What's wrong?" He asked, and Lydia couldn't help but notice that he felt more solid, more real, when he was holding her like this, than he ever did when they accidentally brushed against each other in passing.

And now, she knew the reason why, too.


	11. Pigs in a Blanket

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

* * *

_Swim in smoke, the hero will drown. Intoxicating Beauty tears everything down._

The Hero Will Drown / Story of the Year

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

Lydia trembled violently in his arms, rejecting the small comfort he was trying to offer her in one of the oldest ways known to man. Betelgeuse recoiled in shook at her shivering, unsure of it's cause but dreading that he might be it. His nearly solid arms faded and slipped through her skin, his air passing through her water like a cool breeze.

_Pins and needles, _she thought as he went.

She had always thought that it felt that way, only she had never stopped to bother to put a name to it before. She always just figured _that's the feeling when a ghost passes through, when you're yourself but someone else too_. The familiar sensation, which she once consider to be the most uncomfortable and tingling, gave her a false sense of comfort. At the very least, she supposed it was something that she recognized it for what it was immediately - hope - and squashed the feeling down before it could grow enough to stop her shivering.

"What's wrong?" He asked again. He grew brave enough to touch her again, to pull her in to his lap. Expert fingers slid in to her hair like fish in the river, swimming in her silken tresses. He applied pressure on the back of her neck where it should have comforted her, but in actuality did no more than verify what Juno had just revealed. It did nothing more than reassure her of her own mortality - and his astonishing lack thereof. "Babe. . ."

"Don't call me that." She hissed the command out in between sobs, but wrapped herself around him despite herself, stealing his cold and giving him her warmth - partly because she needed comfort; partly because he was going to need it too. But mostly because she was afraid that she was falling in love with him.

The thought came out of no where, leaving her weak and breathless. _This is Betelgeuse she was talking about here! Four days ago she had only thought of him as the man who __almost __killed her father, and four years ago she had only registered him as a nightmarish figure, wrapped in mystery. He was a ghost, just like the ones that children were warned about. He was the type of ghost that ate away at your soul until there was nothing left that was recognizable or human. _

She turned her eyes on him, hard and slanted, and bore them in to his with a ferocity that he hadn't seen in them since he had first came; maybe even long before that.

"How do you feel about me?"

Her tone was accusing and sharp, meant to cut and pry open where he had nothing to give. Betelgeuse felt a pain where his heart would have been if he had one, and he lost his grip on her hair. It slipped through his fingers, cold from his touch, and fell around her shoulders like a dark curtain; a premonition, to be sure.

"Why do you ask?" His tone was just as accusing, and only a little more hurt. Her eyes welled up with tears and Betelgeuse could scarcely resist the urge to grab hold of her and hold him to him. To bind her to him in every way that he could manage and then a few that he couldn't, so that she was so irrevocably his that she would never be able to imagine a _her_ without a _him. _It was sick and deranged, and his compulsion to make her _his _felt so inexplicably _wrong _that there was no way that it couldn't have been _right. _

And that couldn't be right at all.

"Why. Do. You. Ask?" He repeated in deft tones, and let his fingers dance over her skin like they longed to, let them bury themselves in the silk of her pajama bottoms; let them roam the way that the rest of him would roam, with God as his witness.

_How was it that in four days she had changed her opinion so neatly that the transition had seemed flawless? _

Maybe _she _was in love with _him; _but that didn't feel right. Maybe it was lust, or infatuation. Maybe she'd just spent so much time alone that she craved companionship in anyway that she could get it. Maybe she was just losing her mind. Maybe...

Maybe it didn't matter. It occurred to Lydia then that she didn't care. Whether or not _he _loved _her _was of no consequence; she was running out of precious time. She had no intention of looking inside the manila envelope, for fear that she do something foolish with the time that she had left. No, she would rather live like this, day to day, like Juno _hadn't _told her what was going to happen; lie to herself, as though Juno hadn't given her her future wrapped up in a pretty tanned envelope, a deep yellow in color from the sun.

_What would I be doing right now, _she wondered, _if Juno hadn't come. What would I be doing if I didn't know. . . _

Betelgeuse's arms tightened around her waist like bands. They were clean, and the thick hair that chafed against her stomach with a gentleness that she hadn't expected in him. . . ever. _Why do you ask, why do you ask? _He kept asking her. It rang in her head, over and over.

_She asked because his answer mattered. _If he said no, then she wouldn't say a thing. If he said yes, then she would wonder for as long as she lived (which, in retrospect, was probably not as long as she had always thought it would be) whether or not it was true. She didn't know if she would believe him if he told her that he cared about her, but it didn't really matter.

She would wonder, though, whether or not it was love he was feeling, or simply the manifestation of her energy rolling off of her, feeding his parasitic need for life even as he stumbled through death.

She needed to stop thinking about it. She needed to _go on. _Fuck destiny. Fuck it. . .

She eyed Betelgeuse and her smile warmed; her eyes softened as she melted in to him. Arms limp about his neck, half sprawled in his lap, she bite her lower lip, then his.

"We are being lazy," she said, and feeling utterly foolish, Lydia wiped her face with the back of her arm and offered Betelgeuse a smile. "Didn't you say something earlier about breakfast?"

If her sudden change in demeanor bothered him, Betelgeuse didn't show it. Instead, he released her and she hopped off of his lap with a clatter, dancing on the balls of her feet towards the bedroom door and safely out of his reach. "Well, come on, then!"

Betelgeuse followed her dutifully in to the kitchen, knowing that something important had just happened, but not able to recognize what it was. Just as he was about to leave the bedroom, though, a yellow envelope on her bed caught his eye, and he wondered for a moment where it had come from.

"Are you coming?"

Betelgeuse nodded to Lydia. "Sure thing, babes; what'd you want for breakfast?"

"Mmm... pigs in a blanket!"

His eyebrows shot up into his hair line, and he said sarcastically, "wouldn't the fabric be hard to chew?!"

They both laughed, and the manila envelope lay on her bed, forgotten and foreboding.


	12. We All Have Hell

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

**A/N: **Yesterday's post marks the end of the pre-written chapters. As of today, all chapters are new in their entirety. This chapter, and then one other for sure. Possibly a third chapter, but I doubt it. This story is almost done. If you have read it, and enjoy it, please read and review. My only payment is in reviews.

* * *

_I am your thought but the water is amnesia  
my name is on the tip of your tongue  
My image is slipping  
but your memory is gripping it  
this is my breath in your lungs  
_

Echo, The Hush Sound

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

Echo

* * *

Weeks passed seamlessly, happy moments building on top of each other until she had accumulated a lifetimes worth of joy. Surprisingly, Betelgeuse and Lydia had shared the same, twisted humor; coupled with his ability to make his puns come to life and their mutual interest in pranks, a camaraderie that Lydia hadn't been expecting had formed between the two of them. It helped that neither of them didn't mention their marriage again, but Lydia strongly suspected that Betelgeuse still thought about it as often as she did. After all, the fact that she was beginning to see him in a positive light left her feeling warm and pleasantly buzzed; besides, she couldn't be the first person to have falling in love with her husband.

It had caught her off guard, the strength of the affection that she held for Betelgeuse. He had been making a wise crack at some poor chumps expense and Lydia had burst out laughing, much to everyone in the room's shook. Though Betelgeuse had grown in strength enough to be able to maintain a physical, corporeal form, he still chose to remain her silent and invisible sentential. When she had burst out with a peal of laughter, everyone had turned to her at once, thinking her mad... and Lydia hadn't minded. Not even when Betelgeuse himself had begun to question her sanity.

She didn't care that she had fallen in love with someone who was dead; she probably would have, had she been a normal girl, a more together girl. But she'd never cared about things like that... after all, she had always been strange and unusual. It was this strange and unusualness that had lead her to him in the first place.

Weeks turned into months, and Lydia would have forgotten about the manila envelope that she had tucked under her mattress completely, wanted to forget about it completely... but a weakness that had begun to overtake her body was getting more difficult to ignore by the day, especially since as she weakened, Betelgeuse only seemed to grow that much more powerful. Betelgeuse had asked her about the manila envelope once, recognizing the emblem of the after life the it was stamped with, but Lydia had neatly changed the subject before hiding it away, still unopened.

She had toyed briefly with the idea of casting Betelgeuse away, or confessing what Juno had confided in her, but she doubted that at this point it would make too much of a difference. Besides, she had thought with a wry, sardonic smile, she had every intention of doing just as Juno recommended. She was not going to become fate's toy, not even to save her life.

Especially since she knew that there was something so much greater beyond it.

If Betelgeuse had known, though, known what she was giving up just by allowing him to remain by her side, he would have told her differently – and he would have left in the span of her heartbeat.

But Betelgeuse did not know, and Lydia was not going to be the one to enlighten him. She remained true in her resolve, even as her body began to ache and her chest begin to hurt.

It was not until the day that Lydia had been laying weakly on the couch, covering her eyes from the sun and reassuring Betelgeuse that she was fine, just feeling a little under the weather that he found out anything at all – and even that was only because after trying to ease his worry with platitudes, Lydia had begun coughing... and she kept right on coughing until she started throwing up blood and finally, lost consciousness completely.

Unable to help her recover herself, Betelgeuse called for help and left the phone off of the hook. After the paramedics arrived and carried her away on a gurney, Betelgeuse turned to the only person that he knew would know anything about this. Though he hadn't seen Juno in months, when he arrived at the office of the after life, Miss Argentina took one look at him and thrust her thumb behind her down the aisle.

He raised an eyebrow and grinned cockily. "Special treatment just because you are in love with me?" He asked sardonically. "Why, Miss Argentina; that's just and abuse of your power, don't you agree?"

Even Miss Argentina's snort was wrented with a delicate femininity. "Dream on, corpse."

Betelgeuse raised both hands and walked backwards towards Juno's office, still smirking. "Touch-ey."

Juno had someone in her office when he arrived, but that didn't stop him from barging in. "Hey June bug," he said, sitting down in a chair next to the stiff that she was already seeing.

"I'm with a _client!" _Juno said.

"I can wait."

She narrowed a glance at him. "There is a certain confidentiality that goes with my job."

Betelgeuse shrugged. "Okay, then this will just stay between the three of us."

The guy in the chair next to him gave Betelgeuse a shocked look, and Juno just pointed at the door. "Go wait in the hall, I'll only be another minute."

"But I'm _comfortable _now, and besides -"

"_OUT!" _

Betelgeuse was banished to the hall, chair and all. He sneered at the door. "Geez, can't anyone take a _joke?" _

Juno really was only a few minutes longer, but those few minutes spread before Betelgeuse like days as he waited with thinly masked anxiousness. Lydia was in the hospital, and he was willing to bet from the nervous way Juno had looked at him that she knew why.

The door opened, and Betelgeuse got up and walked in to Juno's now empty office, leaving his chair in the hallway.

"You're here about the Deetz girl, aren't you?" Juno asked, looking out of her window into the realm of the living.

"And _you _know something, don't you?" Betelgeuse accused. "This isn't a normal illness, is it?"

Juno took a drag of her cigarette and shook her head. "There is nothing _normal _about that girl, and there never has been; you know that as well as I do."

"So," Betelgeuse said with an unexpectedly serious manner, "what do I need to do to help her?"

"Go to her," Juno said. "she hasn't got much time left, and she'll need a guide in the afterlife."

"_Horseshit." _Betelgeuse snarled suddenly, seriously, and Juno flinched. "She'll die soon enough; why's she got to die now."

Juno glared at him solemnly, putting out her cigarette into the arm of her chair. "She _chose _to die, Betelgeuse; I warned her of what would happen! She has no one to blame but herself!"

"What are you talking about old woman?"

"I _told _her the consequences of her actions; I _warned _her what allowing _you _to hang around would do: did she heed me? _No. _And did you even _care?" _

If Betelgeuse had any blood in his body, it would have flooded out of his face. As it was, he felt a chill race through him. "_What are you talking about?" _

"The living world is not meant for the _dead," _Juno chastised and opened her desk draw, pulling out a copy of The Handbook. "Does _anyone _read this thing?" She asked, sliding it across the desk towards him.

"Maybe if it wasn't so long and _boring," _Betelgeuse countered and picked it up. "What am I looking for?"

"Page 352. I've highlighted it."

Betelgeuse opened The Handbook and began to read; and as he learned the truth behind Lydia's failing health, the uncomfortable and unfamiliar sensation of guilt began to flood through him. "That little _cunt..." _he whispered, "why didn't she say anything?"

Juno shrugged. "Only Lydia knows the answer to that."

"Why didn't _you _say anything?!" Betelgeuse slammed the book down on Juno's desk and stood, towering over her.

"It was not my place; it was _hers." _

"It _should _have been mine!"

Juno light another cigarette and sat down in her chair, eyes never leaving Betelgeuses. He was even more deadly in his rage than he was when he was being mischevious, and Juno didn't trust him.

"What do I got to do?" Betelgeuse asked helplessly.

"Go to her," Juno said solemnly. "She hasn't got much time left, you know; I think that she would want to spend it with you."

"If I stay, she'll die." Betelgeuse said, "So if I _dont _go... she could get better?"

"It's possible," Juno acknowledged. "But I don't think that's what she would want."

"How do _you _know what she would want?"

Juno shrugged. "I dont; so maybe you should go and ask _her." _

And, because she had no more advice to give, Juno just sighed and pressed her intercom button with Miss Argentina. "Send in my next appointment."

Betelgeuse stood with a sneer. "You ought to rot in Hell, you hag," he said with a scowl.

"Don't you know, _Betelgeuse?" _Juno just smiled in the face of his insult. "I'm already there."


	13. Next Time

**Title**: Next Time

**Author: **Miss Selah

**Summary: **Betelgeuse is coming back from the dead. Juno knows why, but she isn't talking. What's a girl to do, when her husband is a ghost, her life is in ruins, and her health is failing? Because Lydia would really like to know!

**Genre: **Romance / Drama

**Author's Note: **I originally wrote and posted this story 6 years ago, and every few months I would look back and go, "you know, I really should finish that. It's only got 2 chapters to go!" But I never did. Was it because I was lazy? Partially. Was it because I am a bad author? Oooo_ooh _definitely. But mostly it was because I really didn't care much for the beginning. After all, this _was _originally a one shot that became... well, more.

So, 6 years later, I have finally - _finally! _- completed this story. I am sorry that it took so long to complete, but here you go. This was the ending that I've had in mind from the beginning. I hope that you have enjoyed this, and I will see you all Next Time!

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_ It's a shame I have to wait until the ending_  
_ Everything I've yet to break is surely bending_  
_ Every vow I ever take is just pretending_  
_ That this mess I make is worth defending_

-Next Time, Barenaked Ladies

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The special care that Betelgeuse took to make a grand entrance in the hospital room was lost on Lydia, who was still asleep. Seeing that she was unconscious, Betelgeuse coughed at some of the smoke that had flooded his nose and mouth.

"Too much glitter," he grumbled, and stomped up to her bed. "Wake up, girl!" Unelegantly, Betelgeuse kicked at Lydia's hospital cot, jostling her awake slowly with a groan.

"Uhn? Beetlejuice?" Lydia blinked awake. "What's up?"

"What's up?" Betelgeuse glowered at the girl. "What's up is that I just got back from visiting with Juno, you little bitch. Why don't you tell me what's up?"

Lydia smiled gently and closed her eyes on a sigh. "So now you know, hunh?"

"Why didn't you tell me!?"

Lydia shrugged. "It... it didn't really seem that important. What's life, anyway? Just waiting around for the real show, I'd say." Her dark eyes stared up at him, and even though her face was full of gloom and tragedy, her eyes reflected an unexpected innocence. "This life of mine has always just been a way to kill time... I think I told you something similar, when we first met."

Betelgeuse couldn't stop the melancholy that swept over him. "You have no idea what a gift you are wasting, do you? And on what?" Betelgeuse asked her, tucking an errant hair behind her ear. "Why throw your life away for me?"

"It's been yours from the start, remember?" Lydia reminded him, coughing weakly. "I just wanted to get in, while you were trying to get out. Besides, I never much appreciated it anyways; not the way you would have. I've always been looking forward to the day when I could join all of my friends, anyway."

Betelgeuse smirked. "Yeah, you were always kind of morbid, weren't you?" The smirk faded, and Lydia saw an unexpected depth in his eyes. "This isn't fair, you know."

"Hn?" She was getting weaker by the second, just laying next to him. "What isn't fair?"

His hand went over hers, and he smiled. "I kind of like you the way that you are, you know."

"Yeah, you even took a shower for me." Another cough, wet and horrible, wracked through her body and Betelgeuse released her hand.

"Can't I even touch you?"

She hoped it was a rhetoric question, because Lydia had no answer for him.

"I'm tired," Lydia said, looking at him sadly.

"Then sleep."

"Can't," she rolled over in the hospital cot to face him, pale skin sunken and clamy. "I need a bed time story."

Betelgeuse just scoffed. "Honey, I ain't no Mother Goose."

Her hand sought his and grasped it weakly. "I'm sure you'll manage, somehow."

Her breathing was shallow and Betelgeuse gulped, then nodded. "I know one; my mom used to read it to me when I was a kid."

Lydia smiled, closing her eyes and nestling under the coverlet. "Tell me..." she requested again, sleepily.

"Alright," he slumped down on the ground beside her hospital cot, facing the wall away from her.

"A Lion once fell in love with a beautiful maiden and proposed marriage to her parents. The old people did not know what to say. They did not like to give their daughter to the Lion, yet they did not wish to enrage the King of Beasts."

Her breathing had slowed, and for a moment, Betelgeuse thought that she had fallen asleep, until she opened her eyes and smiled. Seeing that he was on the ground beside her, Lydia reached down with a tiny, pale hand and touched the top of his head. "Continue," she beckoned, and he reached up to touch her warm flesh.

"At last the father said: "We feel highly honored by your Majesty's proposal, but you see our daughter is a young girl, and we fear that as the object of your affection you might possibly do her some injury. Might I venture to suggest that your Majesty should have your claws removed, and your teeth extracted, then we would gladly consider your proposal again.

"The Lion was so much in love that he had his claws trimmed and his big teeth taken out. But when he came again to the parents of the young girl they simply laughed in his face, for he was no longer fearsome. "

Lydia said nothing for long moments, and Betelgeuse thought that his story had truly put her to sleep, until she blinked.

"That's a terrible story," Lydia chastised, yawning sleepily as she spoke to him with her eyes closed, already half asleep. "Was there even a moral to it?"

She had slipped to sleep, but Betelgeuse continued to stroke her hand sadly. "Tut, tut, child" said Betelgeuse. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."

He smelled the smoke before he saw her.

"You've come for me again, Juno?" Betelgeuse asked, not looking back.

"I can't make you come," Juno said, taking a long drag of her cigarette. "But just by being near her, you are killing that girl."

"I know," Betelgeuse said sadly, his hand stilling on Lydias. "I know."

"And you care for her, don't you?"

Betelgeuse said nothing; it was none of Juno's business how he felt about her.

"So," Juno asked, her shoes clicking on the lino as she approached him reproachfully. "What are you going to do?"

Betelgeuse sighed. "The only thing that I can do," he said, standing. "The only thing I can."

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When Lydia woke up again, Betelgeuse was gone. She could feel no sign of his presence, and she sighed. "So, that's what he decided then..."

"Who?" Lydia jumped when she realized that she wasn't alone.

"Good morning, doctor," Lydia greeted quietly. "What's the prognosis today?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"You're doing much better," the doctor told her, pleased. "You should be out of here soon."

Lydia nodded.

She guess that she would just have to start living again.

Somehow.

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"Don't look so down, Betelgeuse," Juno said, smiling. "You did the right thing."

"She thinks I abandoned her," Betelgeuse admonished himself. "She thinks I hate her."

Juno said nothing for a moment, not sure if Betelgeuse was talking to himself or to her; not knowing if he wanted to hear the truth of if he was just trying to punish himself.

"What should I do?"

It was all the invitation that Juno needed.

"She's not a child, you know;" Juno said. "She's a woman."

His eyes darkened, and he leered at Juno. "Don't I know it."

"Horn dog," Juno smacked him lightly. "That's not what I meant."

"I know."

The mood turned somber again, and Juno took another puff.

"I never told her that I..." Betelgeuse just looked down, ashamed and unable to say the words. There were only three of them, and they were small, but they were too beautiful for a mouth like his. "Do you think she knows?"

"She's a woman, and she has a woman's heart." Juno's hand went to her chest, to the place where her own heart had once beaten.

"A woman's heart knows."

Betelgeuse nodded. "You're probably right," he said sadly, looking back down the hallway the way that they had come. The clean scent of the hospital was already fading behind him, and though he longed to turn back, to do so would spell death for Lydia... and he wouldn't do that to her.

"Don't let it worry you too much, B," Juno said comfortingly. "She'll be back soon enough; she's only mortal. You'll get another chance with her before you know it."

And while Betelgeuse knew that Juno was right, a that a few years were nothing to a ghost like him, it still caused an uncomfortable ache in the place where his heart used to be.

"You're right," he said, turning away from the human world and walking towards the either world with his hands shoved in his pocket. "Maybe next time, babes; maybe next time..."


End file.
